Kenny's healing was not for him...

I just wanted to take a minute and put down Kenny's covid story.  I am not 100% convinced he was healed for his own sake.  I'll tell you why.  

This is the account leading up to him being admitted. Kenny got sick the first week of December. He did not want to go to the doctor since he felt like he only had a sinus infection. He is so stubborn.  He tried one day but the urgent care forgot about him outside and he left and came home after two hours of waiting.  On Friday after almost a week total of being sick, I made him go to a different urgent care where he tested positive for Covid.  By that night he was getting worse, so off to the ER we went.  He was given a steroid and an inhaler and sent home.  He had a chest xray while he was there and it showed no pneumonia.  Monday morning he was doing pretty bad (of course he tried not to let me know) he told me he was going to just go Pardee to get the infusion because they had been trying to fit him in since Friday and they wouldn't return his call.  Kenny got the infusion and his O2 sats dropped, so they took him next door to their ER.  I would just like to say this...I will not return to Pardee.  The ER was very ugly and wouldn't even let me talk to Kenny.  I wanted him out of there. The doctor even told me that I have no say over his care.  Okay...I will leave it there. He came out and we went straight to Mission.  I work there. I am more comfortable there. I know he will be taken care of there. (Even though it feels like most of this area hates Mission hospital, there are good people there.)

So now is the story of his time in the hospital.  We went to the ER and after waiting several hours, he got a room. They did a CT and his lungs looked awful. I knew he was sick but I just wasn't prepared for him to be in that bad of shape. They were bad.  This is what I do and I see lungs all day long.  His, especially for two days time, looked really bad.  I cried.  He was admitted a short time later and I was able to go with him.  I prayed for Kenny. Prayed he would not get any worse.  I was nervous a little I think, but I felt like he would be ok.  I think.  This is Monday night.

He seemed consistent until Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon/evening I had him all squared away.  He had eaten, he was sitting in a chair, gone to the bathroom, his tray was beside him, and he had a full water.  I took that time to run grab me something to eat and I was back in 10 minutes. I would do that for food.  I would run to the cafeteria and grab a bite or get doordash, thanks to my amazing coworkers.  I was never gone very long to grab food.  Like 10 minutes.  This night when I got back he was back in the bed again.  I freaked a bit and asked why.  He said he had been there the whole time, he had yelled for me, thought I had been gone for an hour, and all kinds of crazy stuff.  His O2 sats looked fine, so I just decided he maybe was just fatigued?  I don't know, I wasn't prepared for that.  A couple of hours go by and his night nurse comes in for meds. He talks to him for at least five minutes.  The nurse goes over to the computer and Kenny looks dead at me and wants to know who they are and what are they doing there. Mind you they were completely suited up, gown, PAPR hood (see below), the whole nine yards, so I can see how he might have been concerned.  lol!  But no! He had no idea he had been talking to them.  I looked at that nurse and was like we have a huge problem. And that was our first bad night.  Kenny was hypoxic.  The nurse had no clue because he had not been with him until then.  He hadn't come in to his room when is O2 sats would dip down. (He was my least favorite nurse, who I am pretty sure was a 12 year old traveler.)  Kenny was not doing good.  He escalated quickly to vapotherm and was put on 45L of O2 at first on 60%. That moved up quickly to 60L at 90%.  So we got to see lab, respiratory, and xray within no time.  Again saw his lungs and they were even worse than on Monday. I was terrified to be quite honest. I knew where this was headed.  

This and a bright yellow gown can be a little terrifying I guess. lol

I had been texting with family and close friends for prayer.  I immediately turned to them again. Urgently!  We had nothing else. No other hope for him to improve. Kenny is pretty private and I knew he didn't want a lot of people to know, so I had kept it to just our family and close friends to message.  Respiratory, charge nurse, they were all saying that he was declining rapidly. That he would be most likely headed towards a vent. That it happens very quickly and he could need that soon. I got him calm (breathing wise) and asleep and I just prayed.  My family and friends were praying. I was standing over him, I placed my hands on his back and I just prayed.  This same night I had a friend tell me to place my hands on him as she prayed over him.  Lots of prayers!

At one point on this night, I literally told the Lord, "I need you to see me".  Yes, I know this is about Kenny.  He was the one sick. But this is the point of my story....I don't think his healing is about him.  A little back story.  I have not been to church since March of 2020. (Well I did one time with Kenni last year to a sweet church in Swannanoa.)  I honestly have no desire to go. The church can be a hurtful place.  Honestly, I felt abandoned.  Like I didn't matter to Him.  Like He didn't see me anymore. I have been hurt. You will never hear me say I am a perfect person. Ever!  I'm not!  Too often though, if you don't fit a certain mold, you don't fit in, and you don't belong.  I haven't felt like I could get a prayer past the tip of my fingers.  I felt like I had really let the Lord down somehow, for Him to let me go through the things I was going through. Going through at the hands of "His people". To feel as lost as I did.  Wounds are deep when they come from within.  I NEEDED to see the Lord with Kenny's sickness and his healing. I needed to know, that through it all, I still mattered to Him.  This may sound selfish or self righteous.  Not at all.  I needed God!  I needed Him to show up and show off!  And as much as I was dependent on other's prayers...I needed Him to hear mine.

Thursday came and he was on the 60L for the next few days.  We had some hard talks on those next few days.  Where is this paperwork and that paperwork. He told me to sell all of his "toys" when he passed because I could use that money.  He told me he was tired of fighting and wanted to quit.  He wanted me to make sure the girls knew how much he loved them.  Lots of things said that I didn't want to be said or talk about.  He was giving up.  I just kept praying.

Sunday night was the first I posted on social media about Kenny.  He wasn't doing great but I knew more prayer would get him better.  I needed more prayers for him. I thought this is it. It will be the "volume" needed.  Sunday night was awful. haha!  He did worse after I asked for prayers. I was like ...ummm...this is not the way this works Lord.  I ask for more prayers... he gets better.  Got it?  haha!  Nope.  Kenny had another really bad night.  I think it was early Monday morning when the night nurse told me that he was going to get moved to the unit and she ordered a pulmonary consult. (Weird, I know, that he wasn't being followed by them already.)  I was devastated.  We were going in the wrong direction again.  I immediately alerted my ever faithful prayer chain. I refused to let this happen. I was praying so hard.  And I was coaching him.  I coached him and coached him.  I convinced them to just give him a chance.  In the night we had taken him off vapotherm because he was just so restless and he had the nasal canula and a non-rebreather on at the same time. Both of which were set at 15 L.  I was like Kenny honey....we gotta stay here babe.  We are not going back on that vapotherm.  You can do this! We are holding steady.  We are not going to the unit.  We are not going back on that. I just kept begging him to breathe. Encouraging rather.  Just really kept him focused.  All the while....praying.  As I said above, I needed God to hear my prayers and heal him.

The doctor came in that morning and for whatever reason...he agreed. He thought Kenny was going to improve and didn't see why he needed the unit.  He felt like we could wait a bit.  He thought he might be ok to stay on the 15L since his sats were ok.  But he did say it would be several days before he could come down from there.  Maybe even weeks.  You have to be on 6L to go home.  It was then that I issued a plea to pray for that requirement to come down.  Saturday was Christmas!  I wanted to be home with the girls for Christmas.

From there the story flies. On Thursday morning the dr felt like if he could handle 6L he could go home that day!  I couldn't believe my ears.  It truly was a miracle. Kenny, just in the wee hours of Monday morning was facing the unit and a vent.  But here we were on Thursday afternoon heading home.

I prayed more during Kenny's almost two weeks in the hospital than I have in years!  I knew God could heal Him and somehow...even though in the dark of night I would cry and plead with Him as I watched the monitor (all night long)...I knew He heard me.  And of all the prayers that were going up...I knew that He had heard mine.

Oh I'm not going to pretend like the hurt is gone.  But the ones that hurt me were people.  Not God.  Also not going to pretend that I understand why He let any oh my hurts happen.  But I know He loves me.  I am far from perfect. Far from the clean cut, polished version that others maybe expect. I am healing too.  I needed to be heard and healed.  Being heard helped.  Now for the healing and getting back to the one that can heal.

Let's rip the bandaid off!!

Well...we have been in quarantine for...well forever it seems!  I say let's get things back to normal!  No really!  I truly think it is the only way.  And I'll tell you why...

I am one of those moms that always thought it was better just to take the bandaid off with one quick motion.  Better than prolonging the inevitable if you ask me. haha!  My kids may not have agreed with that theory.  Don't worry...I used the theory on myself more than I did them.  ;)

If you don't know this about me, I take xrays at the hospital.  So I am frontline against this.  I am right there in the mix of it. I take portables all over the hospital, on every floor, and in every department. I understand that this virus is scary and deadly.  You can see it on the faces of coworkers and patients.  People are scared.  As they should be maybe. This is a new virus, and information about it continues to change.  Here are some numbers for Covid-19.

According to the CDC, the numbers for the US as of today are:
Total cases: 579,005
Total deaths: 22,252

According to the WHO, numbers for the world are:
Total cases: 1,844,863 confirmed
Total deaths: 117,021 deaths 

Let us compare that to the flu.  Here are the influenza numbers.
According to the CDC, as of April 4th, the US numbers are:
Total cases: 39,000,000 - 56,000,000
Total deaths: 24,000 - 62,000

According to the WHO (Which are dealing mostly with guestimates that I have found. As you can see they don't seem to add up):
Total cases: 3,000,000 -5,000,000
Total deaths: 250,000 - 500,000

Regardless, the numbers just aren't there to cause the alarm that has been raised.  I have said from the beginning that I think the government is over reacting to the closing of almost everything. I have also been a supporter of the "stay home, stay safe".  Let me explain.  I feel like if the government issued such an order that I should do my part to honor that.  I should give them time to figure out resources, reallocate items if needed, and get a grasp of this if it is going to get out of hand.  I was also super hopeful that it would encourage the government to loosen the strings if people were complying and then we could just move on already.

NC is supposed to peak tomorrow, April 15th.  That is our peak date...the date with the highest number of Covid-19 cases.  We have had no where near the numbers that even I thought we might have.  
Depending on where you live in this country, you may not be experiencing the same thing. In NY for example, they have had higher numbers of Covid-19 positive patients.  And that makes sense.  Many are practically living on top of each other within the city.  A lot of things I have read about NY hospitals say they were already struggling before the virus hit, so that also would make sense for them to be in more of a need for health care workers.  (I don't live there so I can't say that from first hand experience.)

Where we live, we depend a great deal on the travel industry.  We NEED people to visit here. To stay at our hotels. To eat at our restaurants.  To visit our landmarks and tourist attractions.  It is the livelihood of the area.  The people here are struggling.  Not just the tourist industry but every business here.  We are not NY.  We do not live on top of each other.  We do not have the same outbreak numbers that NY or other areas have had or are having.  (Sorry I keep using NY because they seem to be the most talked about.)

The government has shut down every "non-essential" business so that we can flatten the curve. Over 3.3 million people have applied for unemployment. Which suggests an increase from just over 3% to a possible jump to 9% or even 12%. (Really depends on what you read.)  I have even seen some estimate it could jump to 20%.

Areas of this country need to start back to work. We can't take much more of this!  We really can't.  Some will say that we shouldn't rush back too quick. But you know what?!  People are going to get sick anyway. This virus isn't going anywhere just because we "flattened the curve" or our numbers did not go as high as they thought.  We are at home people.  We are only putting it off.  Once we get out and about...YES...numbers will start to go up again.  That is how it works.  We either stay in and hope the virus goes away, crash the entire economy, and people get sick on the tail end.  OR, we get back to work before our economy crumbles and people get sick now.  Those are our options.

People with immune problems should stay home and be cautious. Just as they should with the flu.  Everyone should be more careful.  Just as they should with any illness.  We need to do better.  But better does not include the economy falling out from under us.

Sorry but that is my opinion.  Everyone has one. But a lot of people agree with me.  We need to rip the bandaid off!!!!!!